


My Family

by ChillyHollow



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith, Strike (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Land Rover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillyHollow/pseuds/ChillyHollow
Summary: Chapter One set during the first three Cormoran Strike mysteries, Chapter Two set during fourth mystery and beyond.  Both narrated by the Land RoverPhoto Montage by ZoeSong (it's fabulous!)
Relationships: Matthew Cunliffe/Robin Ellacott, Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 38
Kudos: 53





	1. My Family

I was born in the early 1960s. I’m not sure when--time doesn’t mean that much to me--but I do remember leaving Solihull (that's near Birmingham) for Yorkshire when my family bought me.I’m a Land Rover Series IIA four wheel drive station wagon, boxy and high off the ground for good clearance, with a diesel engine, five doors, and bench seats, and I am the perfect off road vehicle.Originally I was pale green but now one of my doors is blue, courtesy of a replacement after a collision with a tree when the youngest boy took me out for a joy ride when he was thirteen. It didn’t end well for him or me.I got a new door and he broke his arm.Serves him right.I am not a toy.I’m a working vehicle and I spent a lot of my time early on at the farm, then later hauling the family around as it started to grow. 

Eventually there were four kids:three boys and a girl.I taught them all how to drive and they eventually all became competent except for one.My girl was exceptional.She always had a great feel for me and from what I saw later, she was good with all sorts of vehicles.She understands me.I used to think I understood her, but I’ve begun to realize just how complex a machine humans are. 

My life early on was idyllic.The mother took the kids to school in me and then we went shopping.The father took me to his brother’s farm to haul hay and feed.On Sundays we went to church (after the kids gave me a good clean out).As the family grew they bought a family car, some sort of snooty Volvo, but when the weather was bad I was the one they turned to.I have great traction in snow or mud and I carry various family members reliably any time they need to go out in the elements. 

As the kids grew they took over driving me during weekends and to school events.I went to horse shows, to county fairs, to football practice, and on dates.My girl lost her virginity in me to that showy good-looking boy she met at school.He is as unreliable as any Jaguar and as high maintenance.I never liked him and he never liked me.I made sure when he drove me that the gears ground and I stalled whenever possible. I can’t understand what she saw in him.Surely she saw beneath the glossy exterior? Perhaps not. 

I worried when they went off to university and it turns out, with cause.She came back damaged.Her sunny smile was gone and even her sunny hair seemed to lose its luster for a while.She didn’t drive me for months.I went out regularly with everyone else but she stayed inside until one day, miraculously, her father coaxed her into me and we went to the farm out in a field where she practiced skidding and emergency braking.After that, we took her to a driving course where I watched proudly from the parking lot as my girl took various types of cars through their paces, learned defensive driving, and became certified in various aspects of driving.She was so good that I started to worry she’d become a race car driver.That’s very dangerous, you know.But apparently there’s a prejudice against female drivers, thank goodness.After taking all the courses available, she started to shine again.The Jaguar came around often and eventually they started dating again.I still didn’t like him, though. 

Time passed and my girl went away, just like her older brothers had done before her.I understand fledglings leave their nest but I still missed them.I was less busy after that, mostly farm chores like hauling hay and horse blankets, or going out to the birth of a sheep or cow, just to be there as moral support, but the kids still took me out occasionally, especially my girl.She liked to go into the fields to look at the horses and occasionally ride.I was happy to oblige, just to spend time with her.The Jaguar never went along, and I was pleased about that.He didn’t like the horses any more than he liked me.I chuckled to myself when I realized the horses didn’t like him back.They bit or kicked him when he came close.Never knew horses were such good judges of character!

Eventually my girl came back from London with the Jaguar for a visit.I was surprised and pleased when I realized I was going to accompany them to London.I’d always been curious about big city driving.Of course the Jaguar insisted on driving them back to London.I made sure it was a miserable experience.After that she mostly drove me here and there.London is a bustling place, and the traffic is very much stop-and-go most of the time.The parking is horrendous but I have the luck to be very sturdy and not something that folks want to steal so I lived there unscathed, happy to be with my girl.I was concerned about her, however.She got a job she liked a lot that the Jaguar hated.From their frequent arguments, it sounds like she didn’t make enough money.He also didn’t like her boss.I think he was jealous and I started to fantasize that her boss was a McLaren, an expensive supercar with power under the hood to match the glossy exterior. 

Imagine my surprise when after a particularly bad fight, she took her boss to Scotland in me and I saw him for the first time.Instead of a McLaren, he was more like one of the military’s armored vehicles, big stern guy with a broken nose, a scar on his lip, and a slight limp that I realized later was because he has an artificial leg.The man didn’t insist on driving, though.He just watched my girl with approval as she took me through my paces.They talked or rode in a companionable silence in turn, with my girl eating up the kilometers with me efficiently and effortlessly.Once he apologized about not being able to share the driving.That’s when I realized his metal leg was a hindrance to changing gears.I liked him, and I liked him even more when I realized he was enamored of my girl.Not that he said anything, but I noticed him sneaking looks at her when she was concentrating on the road.He was a perfect gentleman, though.When we had to spend the night in a somewhat dicey area, he made sure she was wrapped in a blanket and he stayed awake on guard a long time.I did my part and jammed all the door locks so that no one could get in who wasn’t allowed.The Jaguar was smart to be jealous of him although frankly, he had no reason.He hadn’t the brains to see my girl is loyal to a fault.  Or that the man was honorable and would never move in on an engaged woman.

We drove the man several times in London after that, taking him here and there sometimes to save him from walking when his leg was acting up.I liked him more and more and I think my girl was leaning on him for support as her relationship with the Jaguar became more fraught.They had several bad fights in me.I worried.She was getting thinner and thinner as her wedding to the Jaguar approached and she seemed jumpy again.I tried to soothe myself that at least during the day she was with the man and safe.Then I started to notice the man seemed jumpy, too.That did nothing to ease my worries.If he was worried, there was something worth worrying about. 

Then came the day when the man came to our place angry and stormed out angrier.My girl cried and cried.I know because she came outside and sat in me to cry to get away from the Jaguar.It was only a short time after that when I drove her and the Jaguar back to Yorkshire for their wedding.I was not happy.The man was gone, the Jaguar was even smugger than usual, and my girl was devastated.I considered just balking and breaking down on the way but that’s not what Land Rovers do.So we carried on. 

I went to the wedding, of course, because I’m family and I was needed to haul the wedding cake, flowers, things like that.I was witness to the man’s arrival in a Mercedes S Class, driven by a short energetic man who I will call the car thief since I noticed how he looked over the cars in the parking lot after the man headed to the church at a limping run.The car thief came over and leaned on me, smoking.I liked him, although I wouldn’t trust him around me if I were a newer, fancier car.The Mercedes told me that he was indeed a thief but a pretty competent driver, that the man slept most of the way to Yorkshire from London, and that he was injured.

I puzzled over this all though the service.Finally the church doors opened and the newly wedded couple exited into the parking lot.I saw my girl smile at the man and he smiled back at her before the Jaguar put her into a Rolls Royce for the drive to the wedding party place.So things were right with the world again.Perhaps his injuries were from fighting for her?I saw how battered he was up close when he patted my bonnet when he spotted me in the parking lot. 

I saw him leave the wedding venue that night.My girl caught up with him on the stairs and they held on to one another as if the world was ending.Then they separated, her to return to the Jaguar and he to the car thief. 

But I have hope now that we are all back in London.


	2. My Family Continued:  Bad Timing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For ZoeSong  
> Chapter Two set in the world of Lethal White and beyond.  
> Narrated by the Land Rover

After the wedding, I took my girl and the Jaguar to the airport where they left for a beach honeymoon.They didn’t say a word the entire trip and for once, I allowed the Jaguar to drive me without incident.It was my wedding present to my girl, who had enough on her mind.She looked out the window the entire time but I don’t think she saw any of the road or scenery. 

They came back from the honeymoon in about the same state, although the Jaguar looked as if he’d been ill.Served him right for making my girl so unhappy.We started flat hunting in London as she wanted a change of scenery.I got to see quite a bit of the smarter parts of town but I didn’t see much of the man.Sometimes he walked her to me after work and she drove him across town once, and although they were polite, it wasn’t the same.They were very distant with each other.That hug on the stairs might never have happened.I know about bad timing—it throws everything off— so I guess discovering you were in love with someone else on your wedding day throws your life off in a major way.Since my girl is loyal to a fault, it was going to take her time to admit she’d made a mistake.I resolved to be patient.

The next long trip we took was when the Jaguar and my girl went to a fancy resort for the weekend to celebrate their anniversary.It was a disaster from the start.He was furious about her job again and drove like a ten year old out for the first time.He went on and on about how little she earned and how the man takes advantage of her. Then he discovered she’d forgotten her wedding and engagement rings.You’d think the world was ending right there.He even parked me close to a garden shed at the resort so that no one would realize they arrived in me because “it’s an embarrassment to drive that pile of junk.”Apparently he wants an Audi A3.Typical—it’s a nicely turned out interior on top of a VW Golf chassis that is best described as under-achieving.Looks better than it drives, in other words.I guess they sort of made up because the drive back to London was better.He went on and on about his job while my girl said the appropriate things mechanically and stared out the window unseeing.I went back to stalling whenever possible as he drove back to London to punish him.

Things were better in our next long trip together because we took the man to Woolstone.Things seemed much more friendly between them although the man looked tired and in pain.They spent the whole trip talking about a case, running theories past each other, speculating about the people they were going to interview out in the country.They spent some time in the big rambling house I took them to, then she steered me carefully up a dirt track to look at something or other.They both went off together and came back dirty and scratched and the man was limping badly.I was glad they stopped at a pub to recover before we made the long trip back to London.But they were happy and companionable and they make a lovely couple.Surely I’m not the only one who sees that?

Apparently not, because not long before we drove the man back to the big house in Woolstone, my girl moved out of the house she shared with the Jaguar.She went off in a taxi with a little overnight bag. Right after she left, another woman showed up, a plump short blonde I’d seen coming and going before.She spent the night there, too.I don’t know what happened after that since a few days later my girl picked me up to go to Newbury race track and then back to Woolstone and the big house.We collected the man at the train station.My girl was tense and unhappy and the man looked bad-tempered. 

They took a call from a stranger on the way from a man who yelled at my girl.She became so upset that she was yelling back at him and she took her hands off the steering wheel—my girl!the one who is a great driver!—and the man grabbed it and insisted she pull over.She did and stormed out of the car to sit on the ground to collect herself, tears streaming down her face.Luckily the man was there and he went after her.They sat on the verge together, her crying and attempting to control her breathing and him next to her, smoking and keeping an eye on her and eventually putting an arm over her shoulder.They talked a long time, so long that the traffic police came by to see what was going on.Then we went to the race track and they were there a very long time as well, waiting to interview someone I understand.When they came out, they both looked a lot more relaxed and they were a team once more. 

We went off down a muddy track again to someplace they called the dell.They sat and talked about the case again while waiting for Barclay to join us.Barclay turned out to be a Glaswegian, gray-haired with round blue eyes like an owl who reported to the man and brought tools.They pulled on boots and got the tools we had in the back and tramped off in the darkness.I could hear digging noises and swearing that continued for a good while.They eventually made enough noise that folks in the big rambling house let the dogs out.They all scattered, leaving me to worry about them, even though I knew the man was with her.After a very long wait, she and the man returned, with him leaning heavily on her.She got him into the front seat and we went back to London.They were very quiet on the way, totally preoccupied with the case. 

I didn’t see the man for about two months after that.My girl moved into a new place in Earl’s Court she shared with an actor.I quite like it.He helped her move although with his bad leg he was not great about helping carry boxes.He brought friends along, though, a couple called Ilsa and Nick, who apparently know the actor, and they all moved her things in a short while since there were so many of them helping.She settled in and seemed to be doing quite well, considering she was having to divorce the Jaguar who was being a pain in the boot. That’s his default setting.

I was glad to have things return to an even keel and to see my girl happy and busy.The man also seemed to be doing well when I next saw him, on a trip to Oxford.She picked him up at the train station and off we went, tea and provisions in the back seat, to interview someone for a client.It was a good day out, although a long one.Going back on the M40 we ran into a huge backup of traffic, so the man plotted a detour to Stadhamptom where we could go south a bit before turning east to pick up the main road again.It was starting to rain although nothing I can’t handle.The road was a nice drive, considering, and we took an even smaller road just before Stadhampton to make our turning back toward the M40.It was there that I started to have an idea.

I checked my oil and water and gas levels, watching and waiting as the rain got harder and the scenery more barren.After I judged we were about half way between the last turn off and the next one, I began to sputter and cough.My girl pulled over and while the man held an umbrella over her, she looked at my fluids and discovered I was leaking oil.There was nothing to do for it but wait for help to come along as there was no cell signal (something I was counting on), which I was hoping wouldn’t happen for a long time.They finished the last of the provisions, talking easily, as it got darker and darker.They studied the map and decided there was no point in walking to find help.Even if his leg would hold out (and he’d never let her go alone) it would be miles before we found a farmhouse.They were stuck here for now. 

I held my breath (or intake cylinders), hoping that it would get colder as the rain continued to fall.It did.My girl got a blanket out of the back and they sat close together under it.I waited.She shivered a little and the man put his arm around her.She reached over and put her arm around his neck and kissed him.I silently cheered.

He kissed back.The rain fell and it was black as pitch as they consummated their relationship on the folded down rear bench seats.I never was so proud or happy.

And that’s how I came to be here, waiting for the twins to have their first driving lesson on grandpa’s farm. 


End file.
